


Coming Home

by Westgate (Harkpad)



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Phil Needs a Hug, mostly comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-19 07:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/880919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that he's fully recovered from Loki's attack, Phil will be leading a new team in investigations for SHIELD. He's been putting off explaining the new situation to Clint and Natasha, but an op-gone-bad for Clint and nosing around by Tony Stark pushes him to reveal the news. He might not be going about this in the right way. He'll concede that much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arrivals

 “When is he due in from London?”Natasha asked, sipping her coffee as they stood in the hallway under the harsh headquarter lights. She was dressed in a black jeans and a fiery orange sweater and Phil thought she looked like she was going out for the night. He wondered who she might be going with.

“Tomorrow. Eleven-ish if the extraction goes all right tonight.” Phil replied. He hadn’t spoken to her in a few weeks. She’d been on her own mission, then other . . . _things_ had gotten in the way, so this was actually the first time he’d seen her in a while.

“Don’t you have a seminar tomorrow?” she asked.

“Yes. I’ll meet him at the apartment after.”

“Do you want me to check on him?”

He wasn’t sure. Clint’s usual come-down from long ops was slow and intense, and Phil knew there was potential for some trauma on this case; he didn’t really know what kind of shape to expect Clint to be in. “….Yes?”

“I’ll be discreet.”

If anyone could be with Clint, it was her. There were times when she got him to eat or turn things in without his realization that it was her manipulation that got him there. Phil watched that sort of thing with admiration and gratefulness. “Okay. Thanks.”

“Do you know if he’s okay? If the mission was successful?” The concern in her voice was audible, and Phil knew that wasn’t something to mess around with.

“No. I haven’t heard anything.” He’d actually been stifling the urge to knock down Nick’s door to find out what the status was for two weeks, but if he was getting a new assignment himself, a team of his own, he’d better get used to not being constantly in the loop with Clint and Natasha.

“This one was too long,” she said quietly.

“Six months.”

“Too long,” she repeated.

“Yes,” he agreed. One month was too long. Despite the occasional burner phone texts, which had stopped after three months, this one was way too long.

“Is Sanders bringing him in?”

“Yes.”

“You trust Sanders?”

“Of course.” He did. Of course he did.

“I wish it were you.”

“So do I.” He did. It should always be him. But that was impossible now, and he _had_ to get used to it.

“Does Clint know ab—“

“No.” Phil cut her off. He didn’t want to hear about it again. It might be juvenile of him, but the thought of telling Clint that particular piece of news was daunting and he didn’t want to think about it right now.

“Oh. That’ll be hard.” She took a step backward at this, reading his taught stance and probably seeing his walls tighten as clearly as he could feel them doing.

“Yes.” He didn’t know what else to say to her right now. Everything had gotten turned around in the six months Clint had been gone. Phil’s relationship with Natasha was strained for the first time since she’d settled in at SHIELD ten years ago, and it seemed like neither one of them knew what to do about it. He just kept hoping she’d give him some direction.

“Well.”

“You’ll check on him?” He tried to keep pleading out of his voice.

“Yes,” she assured him.

“All right. Thank you.”

“I’m not angry with you anymore, you know?” she added as she walked away.

“Good.” He tried to keep the relief from being too obvious, but he had a feeling he failed.

She gave him a small smile and waved. “I’ll see you later, Phil.”

“Okay.” He watched her disappear around a corner and stifled a sigh. He hadn’t been sleeping well, and too much had happened while Clint was gone. Phil just wanted to rewind the last six months and start over. Do-overs should totally be allowed, even for high-level agents who were supposed to be ultra-competent.

He went back to his apartment, cleaned it from top to bottom, made sure the refrigerator was stocked with all of Clint’s favorites, and went to bed thinking of how, if all went well, it wouldn’t feel so empty tomorrow night.

The next morning, after another fitful night, Phil dressed for his seminar and pulled on a professional mask. He just had to make it through these next five hours or so. Then he could deal with the things that mattered.

When Phil stopped the seminar for lunch, it was almost one o'clock. He glanced down at his phone and frowned when he read the text message that Natasha had sent him. It said, 'Come to Medical. Surgery. He's going to be fine.' Phil excused himself from the other agents, promising to be back in time to begin again at two, and tried not to run down to Medical.

Natasha was waiting.

"He messed up his knee," she said abruptly, standing up to meet him. "Pretty badly, they said, and he’s got a few nasty burns."

"Burns?"

"Sanders is still in debrief, so I don't know the story. Clint was doped up on painkillers when they brought him in. A few second degree burns on his neck and one on his left hand."

Phil sucked a breath in over his teeth and crossed his arms. "How long has he been in surgery?"

"Two hours. That's what they said it should take, so he should be out soon."

Phil sat down on a nearby bench and leaned back. He could wait and see if could at least get some news before heading back to the damned seminar. An undercover op ending with injury meant the extraction didn't go as planned. Sometimes extraction was the hardest part, and Phil knew that. He needed to keep harsh thoughts about Sanders away until he got the full story.

He hated not being part of Clint's op, but both Clint and Natasha had been sent out with different handlers on their first missions away from the Avengers as prep for everyone's' new roles in SHIELD.

Both of them would be running their own ops from time to time now that Phil was being shifted to team leader of Omega, the new group tapped as a special investigations unit.  Clint hadn't done a long-term undercover op in a while, but Fury had decided he needed to do it so that, when he was asked to handle one from the outside, he'd have some recent experience. Clint and Natasha didn't know that was the reason, though.

Phil, who had managed to bravely enter a relationship with Clint Barton four years ago (and had kept it mostly-healthy for those four years) and had recently stood up to a demigod, hadn’t found the courage to tell them about his new team yet.

He sighed and looked over at Natasha, who was watching him worriedly. "I'm sorry for how it worked out with Compton, you know."

She nodded and looked away. "He’s incompetent.”

“I thought he’d learn from you and Jake. I didn’t see – I didn’t think that outcome was even possible,” Phil said.

She nodded and sighed. "I know. Like I said, I'm not angry anymore. But Clint's going to be hurting physically and maybe messed up from a six month undercover job. You know how hard those are on him. He gets too involved. Losing Jake is going to be bad."

Jake Friar and Clint had been friends for years. Clint was pretty social once he settled in at SHIELD, and Jake and a few other agents roped him into an ongoing poker game. Clint and Jake would take time off to go rock climbing, turning it into a competition with beer at the end as a prize. Jake was a few years older than Clint, and was a hell of a sniper in his own right. Because they shared jobs, they rarely went on missions together, instead turning them into tall tale sessions together afterward. Clint once said that hanging with him was mindless and easy.

He looked toward the hallway that led to where Clint was in surgery. "I know. I’m sorry."

"It’s not really your fault," she said, and he just nodded.

He felt like it was, but since he'd recovered from Loki's attack, now over a year ago, he'd been very protective of Clint and Natasha and his time with them. Each moment they spent together felt like a gift to Phil, and he didn't want to ruin anything. It felt like that’s all he’d been doing the last six months, ruining everything.

Phil looked at his watch and saw that he had about ten minutes to get back to his seminar. When he looked up, though, he saw Dr. Susan Davies walking toward him. She had a tired smile on her face and he reached out to shake her hand when she approached. "Dr. Davies," he said. "How is he?"

“The surgery was successful, Agent Coulson. He’ll be in recovery for about an hour and then we’ll transfer him to a room. We’d like to keep him overnight for observation, but I know how he is. If you could try and convince him. . .”

Phil smiled. “Yes, I’ll try. Thank you.” He worried a bit about Clint insisting on leaving AMA as he often did, but if he and Natasha could gang up on him, they might have a chance.

She nodded. “I’ll send both of you a copy of his therapy requirements and schedule.”

Natasha pulled her phone out of her pocket as the doctor left. “I have a meeting in twenty minutes. I’ll get Bruce to come sit with him until you’re done, okay?”

“He won’t mind?”

“It’s Clint. He’ll come.”

Phil nodded. She was right. Bruce was better than Tony about being dragged away from his lab if it was important. “Tell him I’ll be done at four-thirty.”

He went back to his seminar, his thoughts straying more and more toward Medical by the time he was done. He even told them to send their questions via email instead conducting his usual Q&A at the end. Phil felt like he had ants under his skin and he knew it would stay that way until he could see Clint.

He shuffled his papers into his briefcase, shook a few hands, and headed for Medical. When he got there, he was surprised to see Bruce sitting in the lobby instead of in Clint’s room. Bruce stood when he saw Phil and ran his hand nervously through his hair.

“Bruce?” Phil asked as he approached. Bruce and Clint had struck a surprisingly easy friendship since the Battle, and Phil enjoyed the man’s company more than he ever suspected he would. Bruce and Natasha would often come to Clint and Phil’s apartment for dinner during the weeks when things were quiet and they’d play cards or watch a movie together. Right now, Bruce looked worried.

“Phil, uh,” Bruce answered, glancing back at the hallway where Clint’s room was. “He woke up about an hour ago and had some water, and I explained where you and Natasha were.” After a sigh, Bruce cocked his head and squinted a little before he said, “He threw me out.”

“What?”Phil asked. Clint wouldn’t throw Bruce out.

“Yeah, told me he appreciated me coming by but that he wasn’t going to be very good company. I told him it didn’t matter,” Bruce held up some folders, “I brought stuff to work on, but he just glared at me and told me he wanted to be alone. I tried to insist on staying, but –“

Phil had a bad feeling in his stomach. “But what, Bruce?”

Bruce met Phil’s gaze. “He told me to fuck off and leave him alone.”

* * *

 

Clint tried to ignore the throbbing in his knee and sleep, but it wasn’t working. He refused to be dosed with pain meds off schedule – he knew he was paranoid about addiction and loss of control, but he couldn’t help it. So he looked at the clock and knew he had at least another hour. He looked at the door, willing everyone to stay away now that he’d gotten rid of Bruce. Part of him had hated telling Bruce to fuck off, but most of him just didn’t want to have to look at another person right now. Phil would be in soon and Clint wouldn’t be able to get rid of him as easily, so he was grateful that Bruce had quietly shuffled off as quickly as he had.

Clint closed his eyes and tried to sleep, tried not to see a little blond girl with bright green eyes and a pixie smile, tried not to see her mother, a ginger-haired beauty, tough as they come with a sparkling laugh that hid her power. He tried not to hear the little girl’s scream or see her mother’s body jerk under the streetlight as the bullet meant for him tore through her.

Of course, it was all he could see.

He heard the door open and looked up as Phil came in. He flicked his gaze over Clint’s body, assessing, and his eyes travelled up to meet Clint’s, but Clint let his own drift shut. He could practically feel Phil’s physical presence as he stepped into the room, and seeing Phil after six months should help Clint deal, but Clint was tired, worn out, and angry. If there was one aspect of Clint’s personality that he and Phil still struggled with, it was his anger. He had gotten good at keeping it tamped down when it did show up, and it didn’t rear up as often as it had when he had been young and angry all the time, but when it did get loose, they didn’t deal with it very well.

Right now, he was burning with anger.

“Clint,” Phil said softly, stepping to the bedside and leaning over, waiting.

Clint kept his eyes shut, but he tried not to clench them. He couldn’t look, even after six months. He was afraid of what would happen if he met Phil’s gaze. Phil was forgiveness, and Clint didn’t want to be forgiven. Phil was resolve, and Clint didn’t have much of that left. Phil was ease, and nothing seemed easy at the moment, so he didn’t let himself look, and instead felt Phil run his hand down his cheek and then grasp his hand, lacing their fingers together.

Phil didn’t talk anymore, and Clint was grateful. He grasped Phil’s hand tightly, letting his grip ease the pain as he waited for that next dose. He let Phil’s silence moor him, let Phil’s intimate knowledge of him wash over him and hold him still without forcing anything. He didn’t want to talk, or see, and Phil just held his hand, steady, resolved. When the pain meds finally kicked in after the hour was up, Clint sunk into dreamless sleep and knew that Phil would be there when he woke.

He did wake about four hours later, his head groggy and his leg starting to throb once again. Phil still held his hand gently, and Natasha was curled in a chair a few feet away. Clint drew a sharp breath when he saw her red hair, hearing another scream in his memory, feeling his anger simmer to the surface. But Natasha woke, and Clint saw her cool eyes, assessing like Phil had done, waiting just like him – they both knew Clint so well – and he settled his breathing, safe here, home.

This time, when Phil spoke, Clint looked up at him tiredly.

“Clint, hey. Are you awake?”

Clint nodded and Phil reached over to raise Clint’s bed. The movement of the bed jolted Clint’s legs, and he hissed in pain as he adjusted himself on the mattress.

“Sorry, sorry,” Phil said. He held out a glass of ice water with a straw, and Clint took it.

“Thanks,” he whispered.

Natasha moved from the chair to the other edge of the bed and ran her hand down his cheek. He didn’t begrudge her the reassurance. He did his own assessment of her as she moved, seeing no visible injuries, but there was something in her eyes, something other than happiness to see him, something sad again.

“What’s wrong?” he said, handing the glass back to Phil when he was done.

She shook her head. “Just worried. Six months and an injury extraction? That _doesn’t_ sound good.”

Clint ignored her lie as he leaned back and looked at a point over Phil’s shoulder. “No, it wasn’t good.” He knew Phil wanted to know, too, but was letting Natasha do the pushing. That, at least, was familiar. Six months without familiar had been exhausting. He looked at Phil and then at Natasha and said, “I mangled my knee in a jump I wasn’t ready to take. Did they say when I can get out of here? I’d really like to sleep in my own bed.”

“Tomorrow,” Phil replied. “They need an MRI before you go, as a baseline.”

Clint sighed and closed his eyes. “Can’t I just come back for it?”

“No,” Phil said. “Clint, you’ve been out of the country for six months. You know the rules. You have to have at least a cursory debrief and several blood tests before you can go home. Hill is coming by tomorrow morning.”

“None of that has stopped me before,” he grumbled, and he reached for more water, which Phil handed over.

“And I’m asking you to play this one straight. That way, when we do go home, you can stay for awhile, okay? Tony’s already forced SHIELD to let you use his PT person, and Steve and Bruce are rumored to be making you cookies and homemade pretzels as we speak. Wouldn’t want to get there prematurely,” Phil answered, watching Clint carefully.

Clint took a sip of water and processed all of that. The team was waiting for him. This was new. Cookies and pretzels (oh god, could Bruce make some killer pretzels) were good, but he didn’t actually like the sound of people standing around welcoming him home. He’d never had it before, and he really didn’t want it now. “I yelled at Bruce. Why is he making me pretzels?” was the only thing he could come up with to ask.

“Because he’s a smart guy who knows you weren’t being a jerk on purpose,” Natasha answered. “And his pretzels always help.”


	2. Reassurances

Phil managed to sleep a couple of hours at a time in the chair near Clint’s bed that night, thanks to Natasha and Sitwell changing the small metal one that was there with one of the reclining long-stay chairs, despite the frowns of several nurses. One nurse tried to say something as Natasha and Jasper were dragging it into the room, but Nat just stood up straight, glared, and the words died on the nurse’s tongue. Phil was grateful.

He also managed to arrange to be right outside the next morning after Hill exited the room with a sigh and told Phil to take Clint home, the debriefing done after about two hours. Clint was exhausted and quiet, his hair mussed and the jeans and green t-shirt Phil had brought from home looking disheveled. Phil had to wheel him down to the parking garage and help him into the car Tony had sent over, and the ride to the Tower was just as silent as the last hour. Phil didn’t push.

They actually managed to stay low key for a few days.

Phil was willing to give Clint space. He made sure there was breakfast for Clint before leaving for work, knew Bruce was dropping food by every once in a while when Phil wasn’t around, and he knew Natasha was accompanying Clint to his PT sessions.

He didn’t push.

Nightmares woke Clint every night, and Phil held him close, stroking his sweaty forehead until he calmed, sinking back quietly and falling back to sleep under Phil’s caresses. After five nights Phil had four names: Sarah and Sophie most often, James and Dominick occasionally.

“You want to watch a movie?” Phil asked after he changed out of his suit one evening. Clint was sitting on the couch in jeans and a blue button down shirt, reading.

Clint looked up and stared over Phil’s shoulder for a second before blinking and looking at him. “Um. Not really? Sorry. I’m kinda into this, and Nat’s coming by in a bit. Oh, and Phil?” Clint called as Phil headed to the kitchen for a drink, “Nat said she needed to talk to me about something important tonight. Any ideas?”

Phil’s years of playing things cool kept a hitch out of his step as he continued to the kitchen. “Could be a few things,” he called back. It could be, but since Clint was scheduled to head back to SHIELD tomorrow for a couple of briefings and his first psych appointment, Phil knew that it probably was the news of Jake’s death. He sighed and made his drink a little stronger.

 Natasha showed up with a pair of crutches and a quick response to Phil’s glare.

“He needs to get to my car and to the bar, and Happy is driving us so it’ll be fifty yards tops. He can do it.”

Phil sighed. “Compromise: wheel him down to the garage but use the crutches at the bar.”

Natasha cocked her head as if ready for a fight, but Clint broke in. “Let him win, Nat. I won’t argue.”

He sounded sharp, and Phil watched as Natasha helped him into the chair and threw his coat at him. He hissed as the collar brushed one of the bandages on his neck, but gave Phil a wave and a half smile as they left.

Phil managed to reorganize his personal filing cabinet, do two loads of laundry, and write two reports before he heard the front door close softly a few hours later. He closed his file and made his way out to the kitchen, where Clint was sitting at the small table with his head in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Phil said softly, sitting down across from Clint. “I –“ He stopped when Clint looked up at him with a small grin. It was the most genuine grin he’d seen on him since he got back.

“The poker gang did a couple rounds in his honor,” Clint said. “It was nice.” And then his face fell and he pushed himself back from the table and dropped his head. “It was nice,” he whispered. “Jake would’ve loved it. Everyone was there – they were,” and he sucked a deep breath in, “They were waiting for me to get home before toasting him.”

Phil nodded and moved to Clint’s side. “Did Natasha tell you what happened?” he asked, kneeling down and setting his hand on Clint’s thigh.

Clint looked at him with a gentle nod. “She said you insisted on sending out Compton instead of going yourself.” He paused. “She also said I should remind you that it wasn’t your fault.”

Phil smiled and stood. “Let’s go to bed. I’m tired.” He was done with the kitchen floor conversation. Lying together a few minutes later, Clint draped his good leg over Phil’s legs and curled a little against Phil’s side.

“Nat thinks there’s something going on with you,” Clint said softly.

Phil stared at the ceiling and replied, “I sent her out with Compton, and Jake was killed because Compton made the biggest rookie mistake in the history of rookie mistakes. I can’t help a little bit of guilt.”

Clint reached out and laced his fingers together with Phil’s, using his thumb to massage Phil’s hand gently. “Jake was a smart guy. He’d disobey a bad order if he saw something coming. He must’ve been blindsided, too. They were all competent. It wasn’t on you.”

“I know,” Phil answered, “but Natasha wouldn’t speak to me when she got back, and you were gone. Sometimes it’s easier to blame yourself than work through the logic.” It was true. It wasn’t really Phil’s fault, but he also knew that his guilt wasn’t totally about Jake’s death. It was about reassigning Nat and Clint in the first place.

Clint was quiet for a few minutes, just holding Phil’s hand, and then he spoke, his voice particularly rough in the darkness of the bedroom. “In the six months I was gone, I infiltrated the factory and was successful in gathering the intel my mission called for.”

Phil tried not to hold his breath.

“I made a few friends, to keep cover and because, well –“

“You’re a social guy sometimes,” Phil said with a grin in the darkness.

Clint huffed, “Yeah. Most of them were good people. Good people getting screwed by a few who decided to throw their lot in with a shady organization. I got in pretty close with a couple of guys and one of them had a family. He knew what was going on but didn’t like it. He wanted me to help him and some others get rid of the influence of that organization.”

“Dominick or Peter?” Phil asked, mostly just to let Clint know he had pieced a few things together from the nightmares.

Clint’s breath hitched. “Peter. Dominick was one of the jerks. But I couldn’t get involved, right? I was only supposed to gather intel, not interfere.” He paused for a moment and added, “I forgot how hard that part was.”

“What happened at extraction, Clint?” Phil asked quietly.

Clint unwove his fingers from Phil and sat up, running his hands through his hair. “I – look. I knew I was leaving. I’d already passed the relevant information to Sanders and had the extraction point and time. It was only a couple hours away. We had a couple scenarios for extraction, but we’d chosen to fake my death. It fit, and there were some people who’d come looking if we didn’t. But—Peter found out Dominick was targeting me. He held me up. I had to say some things to get away if I didn’t want to hurt him physically.”

“He followed you?” Phil guessed, sitting up and rubbing his hand down Clint’s back.

“Yeah. But what I hadn’t counted on was Sarah and Sophie, Peter’s wife and daughter,” he said in a whisper. “It was a _clusterfuck_ , Phil.” Clint clenched his eyes shut for a moment. “Sanders didn’t catch Dominick coming until it was too late, and I had to run hard. He led me – fuck. It was like he knew Peter was going to try something to stop him, so he led me right back to them. A street fight wasn’t what I wanted, but it’s what I got. He blew up a car – the burns came from that – and then I had to get to the extraction point but from a different route. I had to go through a more populated area, the housing district, and he shot and – he missed. He hit Sarah,” Clint stopped and wiped his face and Phil leaned into his shoulder. “Sophie saw it and Peter had to protect her, so I had to scramble to a roof so Peter wouldn’t get in the way. I made a jump and messed up my knee. Dominick shot me, and left me for dead like we knew he would. Sanders got me out after that.”

“I’m sorry,” Phil said gently.

“I _hate_ undercover work,” Clint said, and then lay back on the bed. “And now Jake is gone, too, and it’s like the six months are just gone. Nothing real about them, nothing worth it.”

“You know the intel was good,” Phil said, trying to reassure. This was why they always tried to avoid undercover work with Clint. He was good at it, but he ended up emotionally wrecked a lot of the time.

“I know. It just never seems worth it in the aftermath.” Clint sighed and laughed hollowly. “I’ll get over it, Phil. You know I will. I just need a little time.”

“And Jake,” Phil said, a question in his voice.

“Yeah. Double whammy. Typical,” Clint replied, and Phil felt a dagger touch his heart. He was going to have to add to the whammy soon; he wasn’t going to be able to avoid telling them about his new team for much longer.

There _was_ something going on with Phil right now, and here in the darkness he named it.

He was being a _coward_ , which is not who he was. It was just that the change was going to change their dynamic professionally, and that dynamic had been running like a well-oiled machine for years.  If he was honest with himself, he wondered how important that professional dynamic was to their personal life. People worried that their personal life might interfere with their professional life, but that wasn’t a problem for Clint and Phil. They didn’t necessarily bring their work home with them, but to a point it was unavoidable – they could help each other after a mission because they were on the same mission.

Now, especially as he listened to Clint relay a mission that he wasn’t there for, Phil worried that they would be too far apart.

He held Clint through the night and the next few days were better. Clint talked to psych, got back to SHIELD a few times, and graduated to crutches full-time. Phil even made a plan for telling Clint and Natasha about his new team. He would take them to dinner and break the news. They’d understand and figure the new dynamic out together.

It figured that Tony Stark would find out first. The real problem was that it was Natasha that he told, and Phil didn’t actually find out that anyone knew for a whole day. He came home to an empty apartment, which wasn’t all that unusual – living in the Tower gave Clint plenty of options of where to be while Phil was at the office.

He got a text from Clint that he was out with Bruce, Tony, and Natasha, so Phil set up at the table with some work and ended up buried in it until ten. He got up and stretched, and decided to get ready for bed and read. He woke at midnight, and Clint still wasn’t home.  

He checked his phone for messages and found one from Natasha about an hour ago that read, “Come to the usual bar with us? We need to talk to you.”

He sighed and texted her back, “I just woke up and found your message. Give me a few minutes.”

He got a terse ‘”Just come up to the common room,” in reply and climbed out of bed to find some jeans, wondering what was going on.

What he didn’t expect was being confronted by the whole team at midnight in the common room.

“You’re leaving us, Agent?” Tony called out over his scotch as Phil entered the room and found everyone there, including Thor, who was leaning against the bar wearing jeans and a t-shirt that read “I’m with Stupid.” Bruce was sitting with Steve at the long, wooden table that sat behind the couches that Clint and Natasha were perched on. Clint was swinging his good leg and watching his feet while Natasha just glared.

He knew right away what had happened. “Stark, I thought it was common courtesy to leave the files of your teammates alone.”

Tony nodded slowly. “Turns out you’re not a teammate, though.”

Phil heard the disappointed tone and sighed. Steve stood from the table and came over to Phil. “We thought you’d be working with us, Phil.”

“We thought you liked us,” Tony added.

“Aye,” Thor said. “I know of no other SHIELD agent I like, Son of Coul. The others are so. . . sour.”

Phil smiled a little at that and said, “I thought I was going to work with you, too. Director Fury had other ideas and I couldn’t say no.”

Clint made a huffing noise and got up from where he was propped. He grabbed his crutches and stalked across the room as Steve called out, “Wait, Hawkeye.”

Clint glared at Phil and said, “You have another team. You’ve known about it since _before_ I left.  I needed confirmation and I just got it.” And he left.

Phil closed his eyes for a moment and then looked back at everyone else. “There’s a new team being designated ‘investigations,’ and Fury wants me to lead it. Medical thinks it will be less stressful for me, which they seem to think is a good idea. I think they don’t know SHIELD very well, but Fury wants me to spearhead the new unit because of my experience. He wants to discuss liaison duties with Agent Romanov and Agent Barton but isn’t sure we even need one.” He took a deep breath and looked toward the door where Clint had just left. “I wasn’t sure how to tell you, and was worried about personal fallout. Thanks for clearing the air for me, Stark.”

“Any time, Agent,” Tony said, his voice hard.

Natasha crossed her arms and moved to Phil, talking low and shifting the conversation to the two of them. “Clint has enough crap right now, Phil.”

“I know that. Why do you think I didn’t throw this at him right away? I’m not an idiot, Natasha.” She raised an eyebrow and he knew things with her would be okay as he gave her a tired grin. “Not the _best_ strategy, I’ll admit, but I’m not an idiot.”

“You are if you don’t go straighten this out right now,” she said, and he nodded.

“I know.  Do me a favor and explain to them how saying ‘no’ to Fury is a bad idea?”

“Yeah. I’ll try to smooth Stark’s feathers,” she answered lightly.

“Thanks,” he said, and he left the room without another word.

 

Clint wanted to go to his hideout. It was a corner of a roof that would only hold him, and took a short climb to get to. With his bum knee he couldn’t get there, though, and that pissed him off. He went to the roof anyway, and dragged one of the lounge chairs kept up there over to the short wall, threw himself into it and stared up at the dark, starless sky.

He knew he wouldn’t have to wait long, and when the access door opened behind him he drew his good knee up to his chest and did his best to close himself off.

“Clint, I’m sorry,” Phil said quietly, pulling the other lounge chair over and sitting down. Clint could hear the shake in Phil’s voice; it fit into the ‘rare’ category on Clint’s list of Phil’s tones in his head. It always disarmed Clint, although he knew Phil didn’t do it on purpose. This time was no different, and Clint sighed as he stretched back out on the chair and looked over at Phil.

“Why did you wait?” Clint asked, leveling Phil with his best glare. The anger in his chest was simmering, despite Phil’s shaky tone. “Why didn’t you tell me and Nat earlier? We had to hear it from Stark, god damn it!”

Phil looked away, another thing he never did. “I –I only found out two weeks before your mission, Clint. You were knee-deep in prep for it, and I thought it would be a distraction.”

“Fuck that,” Clint said, feeling the anger growing. He didn’t know what he wanted Phil to say, but ‘sorry’ and ‘I kept it from you for your own good’ were not on the list.

“You know I’m right,” Phil started, but Clint cut him off.

“I do? You think I know that? You could have told me. I would have listened to your reasons and Fury’s fucking logic and I might have even been fine with it, damn it. But you kept it from me,” he said, his voice rising. He leaned forward and put both feet back on the ground. “You never keep things from me, Phil. Never. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?”

Phil stared at him for a moment and then Clint saw as things slid into place for him.  He leveled an unflinching gaze at Clint and set his jaw. Clint loved and hated that look.“You’re supposed to let me admit that I screwed up and then talk to me about it. You’re supposed to accept my apology so that I can explain why I was so god damned scared to tell you about this. So I can show you how my hands fucking _shake_ when I think of our work lives being separate from each other. So I can tell you that I kept it from you because it’s got the potential to change everything with us. I need you to _listen_ to me, Clint!”

Clint stared for a moment, and then deflated. He could hear the honest fear in his lover’s voice, fear that never crept in, except when things concerned their relationship. Clint ran his hands through his hair and nodded. “Okay. Okay. I’ll listen. Why does who you’re working with change anything about us?” he asked, because he really wasn’t following Phil’s line of thinking, which was weird.

Phil opened his mouth and then shut it again, stared at Clint and then shook his head. “You don’t see it?”

Clint shrugged. He wasn’t the best at this interpersonal shit, and he was pretty lost here. “Uh, no? I mean, you’ll be on different assignments. We’ve done that before.”

“Clint. I’ll be _permanently_ on different assignments. We won’t be working together. There’ll be things you can’t tell me and things I can’t tell you. We’ll be apart a hell of a lot more. Have you ever thought about how much of our time together is spent on-mission or in meetings together at SHIELD? We’re not going to be around each other and a lot of the time we won’t be able to talk to each other.”

“Wait,” Clint said, confused. “My clearance is the same as yours. Why won’t we be able to talk to each other?”

Phil sighed. “Fury’s bumping me up. Plus the team he’s giving me is going to be working top level cases.”

Clint thought for a minute and then gave a sheepish grin. “Uh, can I still talk to you about my stuff?”

Phil seemed taken aback. “Yes.”

A weight lifted off Clint’s shoulders.  He’d been worried for a minute. “Oh, okay. Good.” From the look on Phil’s face Clint figured he was still missing something. “What? I mean, I vent to you way more than you vent to me anyway – “ and that’s when it all clicked in Clint’s head. He didn’t know whether to be mad or to laugh. “Wait. Wait,” he said, and stood to lean on the wall of the roof. “You’re worried that if we can’t talk to each other about work then our relationship will tank? Are you serious?”

Phil stood too, and brushed his hand down his face in exhaustion. “Yes? I don’t know. It sounds kind of stupid when you say it, but yes. That’s mostly what I was worried about.”

Clint looked out across the city for a moment, gathering his thoughts. His anger was gone. He knew what Phil was worried about and found it ridiculous, which actually kind of helped. He was still a little mad, though. “Have some god damned confidence, Phil. We can talk about other stuff over dinner than just SHIELD. We live with Tony fucking Stark, after all. Entertaining shit’s gonna happen without dragging work into it.”

Phil laughed, and all the anger in Clint’s chest seemed to get sucked out into the night air.

“I’m _right_ ,” Clint went on. “And I love you for more than your capable mission leadership, no matter how much it does turn me on.” And then he thought of something. He leaned into Phil’s space and gave him a glare. “Don’t fuck your new teammates, though. That is not acceptable, no matter how much you turn them on with your capable mission leadership.”

Phil leaned in and brushed a kiss across Clint’s lips, stealing the last of Clint’s anger. “I won’t fuck my new teammates, Barton. You’re the only teammate for me.”

Clint chuckled and pulled Phil against his body. “Can’t believe you waited seven months to tell me.”

Phil answered, his breath ghosting over Clint’s lips, “I can’t believe you’re taking it so well.”

Clint pressed his lips to Phil’s and ran his tongue over Phil’s teeth before replying, “Always underestimating me.”

Phil pulled back, a glint in his eye that made Clint hard just looking at. “I never underestimate you. Your emotional competence, yes, but not you.”

Clint shrugged and pulled him for another slow, deep kiss. “I forgive you anyway,” he finally said, and Phil leaned his forehead against Clint’s.

“Thank you,” Phil whispered, and they stood at the edge of the New York City night and fell back on what they knew, what was familiar, and the reassurances that they both desperately needed. 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I appreciate all comments and subscriptions a great deal, and I'll probably come back to this time frame sometime soon. Thanks to lexxorz for beta awesome!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to lexxorz for shining beta work, again.


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